Kinder Morgan will move forward with a $3.3 billion project to expand its natural gas pipeline capacity to utilities in New England, the company announced today. The Northeast Energy Direct project will expand Kinder Morgan’s existing Tennessee Gas Pipeline, which has been delivering natural gas to New England since the ‘50s. Kinder Morgan plans to file an application with federal regulators for a 30-inch pipeline design with capacity of 1.3 billion cubic feet per day.
Customers in New England paid over $7 billion more for electricity over the past two winters than they did in the winter of 2011-12, largely due to a lack of pipeline infrastructure, according to the regional electrical system operator. Kinder Morgan said in a press release its Northeast Energy Direct project is “indispensible” to meet an anticipated need of 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas in the coming years.
The pipeline is expected to begin service in November 2018.
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